ARI Literacy Leadership
April 2024
The Alabama Reading Initiative (ARI) is a statewide K-3 initiative committed to supporting the development of high-quality instruction that will prepare all students with the literacy skills needed to meet or exceed grade-level standards. The goal of the ARI is to significantly improve reading instruction and ultimately achieve 100% literacy among public school students.
Green Thumb Leadership
To have a green thumb means to have a special skill for gardening and the ability to make plants grow well. Planting, tending, and growing a young plant into a flourishing mature tree holds so many rewards. Many instructional leaders have a green thumb. Growing people, teams, and communities is no different. If you plant the right seeds, nurture them, and fertilize them, leaders will grow! Are you a green thumb leader? Leaders have the "green thumb," so let's finish strong as we work collaboratively to continue to grow teachers and students.
In an effort to continue sowing seeds that will impact student achievement, let's reflect on opportunities to:
1. Let's continue to nurture a love for reading.
2. Let's prune away consistent deficiencies in reading by adhering to the Alabama Literacy Act.
3. Transport important nutrients to scholars, by encouraging your team to extend their knowledge base through professional learning opportunities such as LETRS.
4. Add sunlight, through the consistent coaching efforts of the Local Reading Specialists and strong principal/coach partnerships. Student-centered coaching is a key energy source for growth.
5. Fertilize student learning so that scholars are able to continue to thrive during the summer months.
Remember, great leaders have to get their hands dirty to see the progress they want and create the right environment for the team to flourish.
Circles of Influence: The Soil of Literacy
Crops need nutrients. A fertile soil will contain all the major nutrients for basic plant nutrition. Just like crops, effective literacy instruction and instructional leadership require a strong foundation of the right nutrients. The Circles of Influence have served as a BIG piece of our work this year. We used the Circles of Influence to FOCUS our work...which is the soil that strengthens us as we implement the Alabama Literacy Act. Our work this month will consist of digging deeper into each Circle of Influence as we use data to strategically plan specific actions in all areas. We all have heard the saying, “Failing to plan, is planning to fail." The effectiveness of your school is directly dependent on the effectiveness of your planning process. Strategic planning around the Circles of Influence is vital in clarifying where your school is going and how you are going to get there. Intentional planning around the Circles of Influence will ensure that you are planning for improved student achievement. It is important to remember the circles do not operate in isolation. All circles should be in motion simultaneously to improve student achievement. Why do you need to plan NOW?
· Planning Helps Leaders Set Expectations
· Planning Helps Leaders Allocate Resources
· Planning Helps Leaders Hold People Accountable
· Planning Helps to Reduce Uncertainty
Planning questions centered around the Circles of Influence can be found on pages 26-28 in the Alabama Literacy Act Implementation Guide. These questions would serve as a great planning document as your school leadership team plans for student success. What happens when you mix a true "sense of urgency" with "intentional planning?" Schools start to achieve the impossible! When your purpose and your planning collide, positive RESULTS will be your only OUTCOME. It is time to USE the data and the Circles of Influence to PLAN your daily decisions, your instruction, and to determine what changes you need to make.
Your ARI team is ready to support all your planning efforts.
April Leadership Tasks
- Hire Summer Reading Camp teachers trained in the Science of Reading (SOR).
- Provide staff training specific to Summer Reading Camp by qualified instructors.
- Ensure that before school and/or after school instruction is delivered by teachers or tutors with specialized reading training. Additionally, provide supplemental evidence-based reading intervention by qualified instructors.
- Review the schedule of your Local Reading Specialist and reflect on how you can support him or her in achieving the goal of coaching 60% of the day.
- Schedule and conduct classroom walk-throughs.
Develop a plan for collecting student evidence within your school or district. Support 3rd grade teachers as they collect evidence for the student portfolios.
Based on your district guidelines, begin entering SRIP information in Unified Insights.
Supporting Your GROWING Readers in Third Grade
As we approach the end of the year, it is time to begin planning to meet the needs of any third graders who do not meet a pathway to promotion or those promoted to 4th grade by a good cause exemption. As you are thinking ahead to next year, please be cognizant of what the Alabama Literacy Act states should be in place to provide for the literacy needs of these students.
For 3rd grade students who do not meet a path to promotion and are retained:
- An extensive and intensive acceleration should be established at each school (pg. 24-25 of the ALA)
- Written notification should include a description of proposed interventions and supports to improve any identified area of reading deficiency
- Criteria for intensive acceleration includes:
- Highly effective teacher who has received training in the science of reading and multisensory language instruction, as demonstrated by student reading performance data
- Reduced student teacher ratio
- Explicit and systematic reading instruction and intervention for the majority of student contact time each day
For 3rd grade students who are promoted to 4th grade with a good cause exemption:
- Continue to receive intensive reading intervention that includes specific reading strategies prescribed in the SRIP (Student Reading Improvement Plan) until the deficiency has improved. (The LEA shall assist schools and teachers with the implementation of reading strategies that research has shown to be successful in improving reading among students with reading difficulties.)
The Student Support Flow Chart featured above is a wonderful tool to keep handy as you are analyzing the data and progress of these students and how to best meet their needs.
ARI has also created a document for you to use as a tool as you prepare to support and plan for the structures that should be put in place for the 2024-2025 school year.
While utilizing this document, leaders should consider the following things:
- Building the FOUNDATION
- Who will the teacher be?
- What curriculum/resources will you use?
- Framing the STRUCTURE
- How can you structure the daily schedule so that most of the student's day is focused on interventions/support?
- Refinements and IMPROVEMENTS
- How often will you progress monitor?
- Have you set goals based on the lowest deficiency to ensure student progress, closing gaps, and moving students to proficiency?
- SUSTAINABILILTY Plan
- What structures are in place for all students to decrease the number of retained students each year?
- How can coaching support BOTH retained students and students promoted with a good cause exemption?
For more detailed information, check out the presentation below. Your RLLS is happy to support you as you develop structures for next year.
This resource below will be very helpful to share with everyone to ensure we are taking the necessary measures to provide for the needs of all 2nd and 3rd-grade students based on their performance on the ACAP summative."
Google Folder Link:
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1aNeZUPfLPkSuGCZkvqCBRFB9ssGMvCag?usp=sharing
Summer Learning Camp
The Alabama Literacy Act is designed not to retain students but to provide opportunities for promotion through the identification of needs, intervention to support those needs, and opportunities to demonstrate acquisition of third-grade standards. There are four paths that lead to promotion to the fourth grade. By refusing to allow your students to participate in the ACAP testing components (ACAP Summative and ACAP Supplemental), you reduce your students' opportunities by 50%.
Literacy Act Portfolio Reflection: Where Are You in the Process?
- Has your school/district identified work samples to measure the 9 essential standards?
How did your district define mastery at 70%?
Do your work samples effectively measure the standards?
Does the school/district have a plan for organizing literacy act portfolios?
- How does your school/district handle sending and requesting portfolios for transferring students?
- What is your plan to support and monitor the progress of the portfolio?
- Have parents been notified of the portfolio process?
- Does the district have a system in place to enter portfolios into Unified Insights?
Remember, The Alabama Literacy Act is NOT about retention. The goal is that every child will find a successful pathway to literacy success.
ACAP Supplemental Dates
A state board of education-approved reading assessment system shall be administered at the beginning and end of summer reading camp to measure student progress.
(ALA page 17, lines 10 - 12).
The 2023-2024 End-of-Year Early Years Assessment system data will be used as the pre-test. An assessment from the same assessment system used for the pre-test will be used as the post-test to measure student progress. The post-test should be administered within the last five days of the summer program.
Third-grade students scoring below the reading subtest cut score (435) in reading on the ACAP Summative Assessment in the spring of 2024 will be provided one opportunity to take the ACAP Supplemental Reading Assessment during one of the two summer testing windows.
Window 1: June 24 - 28, 2024
Window 2: July 15 - 19, 2024
Summer Learning Camp
Each local education agency must provide a summer reading camp to all K-3 students identified with a consistent reading deficiency (ALA, page 16, line 20) with mathematics embedded. Summer reading camps, at a minimum, shall include at least 60 hours of time in scientifically based reading instruction and intervention (ALA, page 17, line 6, and, ANA, page 36, lines 10-12).
Interviewing Local Reading Specialist Applicants
Each school building has its own culture and climate, and these are important factors when selecting any employee. The information provided in this document is for instructional leaders to consider when hiring a Local Reading Specialist.
Unified Insights Updates
Training on the Student Plans in Unified Insights has concluded statewide, and it is now time to develop a plan for implementation in your districts. The Unified Insights team has provided several resources to facilitate this process. These include a recorded version of the presentation, a step-by-step guide to assist users in attaching a student plan to a student record in Unified Insights, and a PowerPoint presentation for training purposes. All of these resources are linked below and should prove valuable in conducting your own training sessions.
Powerpoint Presentation of Unified Insights Student Plans
Step-by-Step Guide to Student Plans
Demo Presentation on Student Plans
Training on the intervention piece will begin in April. You may choose four representatives for your district to attend the training. A page has been created to house all Unified Insights tutorials in one place. This would be a great site to bookmark and share with your faculty and staff to reference as needed.
Big 5- Focus Area: Phonics
Opportunities for Application: The Power of Practice
Students need multiple opportunities to practice and apply the phonics skills they learn. A well-designed lesson incorporates practice in meaningful ways, following a gradual release of support.
The following are important factors to consider:
Practice is a key factor in closing the gap in achievement.
Practice is a key element in the teaching-learning process to facilitate learning outcomes.
Practice is where the science of reading intersects with the science of learning.
Decodable text reading facilitates orthographic mapping and is an ideal choice for practicing new decoding skills.
Text-reading practice should occur at least 10-20 minutes per day, depending on the age and level of the student.
Formal, sequential dictation practice each week provides students with structured opportunities to develop their writing and spelling skills, with guided support and corrective feedback.
In Pam Kastner’s Article: The Power of Practice to Maximize Student Learning, she provides these key takeaways:
- Practice is essential to learning because it helps to consolidate and strengthen memory for the knowledge and skills being learned.
- Instructional routines are structured teacher behaviors and procedures used consistently in the classroom to support and enhance student learning.
- Instructional routines are a powerful vehicle for practice that benefit teachers and students alike.
Phonemic Awareness Video Vignettes
Phonemic awareness is “the conscious awareness of the individual speech sounds (consonants and vowels) in spoken syllables and the ability to consciously manipulate those sounds” (LETRS Vol. 1 pg. 87). Students’ phonemic awareness skills continue to develop through about the fourth grade where they are practicing more advanced skills including the ability to substitute and reverse sounds. Kilpatrick (2015) emphasized that “mental phonemic manipulations must be fast and automatic to support consolidated, automatic word recognition”. This is such a crucial part of instruction that must not be overlooked in K-3 classrooms. It should be a daily part of the literacy routine. Check out this video created by ARI that highlights evidence-based phonemic awareness instructional practices.
This is a resource you can share on your social media, in newsletters, and in communication with parents and guardians to give suggestions of how they can help their child build their phonemic awareness skills at home.
Professional Learning Opportunities
WebEx / Third Graders and Finding a Path to Promotion for Spring 2024
Two WebEx sessions will be offered in May for local superintendents of education. These sessions are particularly significant this year, given the elevated importance of achieving successful outcomes for third-grade students. Our professional learning sessions, tailored specifically for local superintendents, will delve into the promotion pathways, and delineate your specific responsibilities in this context. Although the sessions are intended for superintendents, members of the LEA leadership team are welcome to join.
Thursday, May 16, 2024, from 3:00 p.m. - 4:00 p.m. CST
Friday, May 17, 2024, from 2:00 p.m. - 3:00 p.m. CST
Looking to add a Certified Academic Language
Therapist (CALT) to your staff?
LETRS Information
LETRS Course Managers
During the month of February, Lexia and the Alabama LETRS team collaborated to create two opportunities for LETRS district course manager training. This training will allow course managers to better support the districts they serve as questions arise. Course managers can provide progress, guidance, and support to school administrators for the educators in their buildings who are enrolled in LETRS. They will also be able to celebrate the successes of LETRS trained educators and encourage others who have not yet begun their LETRS SOR journey. Each district can have two designees.
LETRS Course Reminder
Each LETRS course has a license end date. This is the last day an educator can access the LETRS course online content. All participants are supported through email reminders about course progress timelines and live sessions (in-person or virtual) offerings to complete all requirements on time. The live sessions are also listed in PowerSchool. If a participant desires access to the online platform content after a license expires, the cost is $99 per year and can be purchased through Lexia, support@lexialearning.com, or 800-507-2772.
LETRS Mastery Stipend
There will be a spring 2024 LETRS Mastery stipend opportunity. Be on the lookout for the release of that memorandum.
Points of Contact for LETRS Questions
If your question/s relate to:
LETRS for K-12 or LETRS for Admin: alabamaletrs@alsde.edu.
LETRS for Early Childhood: ece.letrs@ece.alabama.gov
Details related to attending a LETRS Unit training session or make-up session, contact alabamaletrs@alsde.edu.
Access to the LETRS online learning platform or manual:
Contact LETRS Help Center:
Call Customer Support 800.507.2772 or email support@lexialearning.com
Measuring the Impact of Coaching
As we embark on the last quarter of our school year, we reflect on the impact of our collective coaching cycles throughout this year and ways to make fourth quarter coaching cycles impactful. As local reading specialists, we continually strive to enhance the impact of our coaching and maintain effective coaching practices throughout all coaching cycles. Measuring the impact of our coaching enables us to make decisions not based on assumptions but rather on actual evidence. This evidence includes student performance, teacher growth, feedback, and personal reflection.
Measuring the impact of coaching involves collecting data at the end of a coaching cycle to assess its effectiveness for students, teachers, and coaches.
A time for reflection:
Are we being data detectives with both quantitative and qualitative data related to our coaching impact?
As local reading specialists, we should reflect on the coaching footprint we leave behind. Does the evidence show that our impact is like a footprint in the sand, temporary, or is it strong and lasting like a footprint in concrete?
Additional Resources to Support Measuring the Impact of Coaching:
- The Essential Guide for Student-Centered Coaching- Chapter 3 Understanding Our Impact
- Student-Centered Coaching: The Moves- Chapter 9 Measuring the Impact of Coaching
SHORT is searching for student writers and educators to help him create his next book, Where SHORT Loves To Read! Help SHORT by going to www.SHORTtheSquirrel.com and submitting your ideas and illustrations! The deadline to enter is April 11, 2024! We can’t wait to see what you create!
Short the Squirrel is Looking for Blossoming Student Writers!
The information included in this document is done from the perspective of improving LITERACY instruction for students and is only intended to outline support that directly relates to literacy instruction. Please use any resource links with discretion, as their position statements are their own and not necessarily representative of ARI and the ALSDE. Usage of any materials should be with adherence to rules and regulations of the Alabama State Department of Education.